Outpoll Weekly Recap: Finance (January 19 – 25, 2026)

This week felt like a masterclass in the inevitable convergence of traditional finance and the crypto frontier, a theme that’s moved from niche prediction to tangible market reality. The headline act was the Federal Reserve’s mid-week announcement, which, while holding rates steady, delivered a surprisingly dovish tilt in its forward guidance.The immediate reaction was textbook TradFi: a sharp rally in equities, particularly tech, and a dip in the dollar. But the real story unfolded in the prediction markets and on-chain.Contracts tied to a Fed rate cut by Q2 surged to a 78% implied probability, up from just 55% a week ago, according to major platforms. This macro shift acted like a rising tide, lifting all boats but supercharging the crypto-correlated assets.Bitcoin, ever more sensitive to liquidity expectations, broke through the $75,000 barrier for the first time since last November, with prediction markets now placing a 40% chance on a new all-time high before the halving event. Yet, the most fascinating action was in the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) space.As bond yields softened on the Fed news, we saw a massive influx into yield-bearing tokenized Treasury products; total value locked in these DeFi-adjacent instruments spiked 22% in 48 hours. It’s a clear signal that smart money is using crypto rails to execute a classic duration play, seeking yield in a format that offers 24/7 settlement.Meanwhile, in a quieter but potentially more profound development, a consortium of European banks successfully piloted a shared ledger for commercial paper, a move that feels like watching the tectonic plates of finance grind together. The prediction market for ‘widespread institutional adoption of blockchain for settlement by 2027’ saw its odds jump 15 points. The narrative this week wasn’t about crypto versus Wall Street; it was about crypto *becoming* Wall Street’s new plumbing, with every macro tremor now instantly priced across both legacy indexes and decentralized futures markets.

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